GIMME SHELTER.

GIMME SHELTER by ROB GITTINS.

What if - out of the blue - you witnessed a major crime?

What if your testimony - and yours alone - could put one of the most dangerous criminals in the country behind bars?

Would you do it?

And if you do, who's there to protect you?

Ros Gilet, late 20s, is a Witness Protection Officer. Every day, Ros tells lies. Every day, she teaches others how to live a lie. In her world, it's the only way to stay alive.

This world is as far removed from traditional policing as it's possible to imagine, populated by people stripped of everything - their identity - all previous certainties; a fractured world inhabited by souls in limbo.

And it's a world that's about to face its sternest test. Because Ros is about to be pitted against one of the deadliest psychopaths imaginable as she fights to keep her latest witness safe.

But is that witness all she claims to be?

And, in a world in which nothing can be taken on trust, is Ros herself all she seems?
....... Outer back cover.

FIRST SENTENCE (Prologue): Once, she'd had a nightmare.

MEMORABLE MOMENT (Page 148): The father was quiet. He was looking through a window from a world he knew onto a world he never knew existed. And now he had no way back to that world he previously knew. That world, as he was already fast beginning to suspect, was forever dead to him.

MY THOUGHTS: Though never gratuitous and thankfully with not overly many brutal episodes. Without a doubt this has to be one of the more graphically violent books I've read and yet not at all your traditional crime novel. I found it utterly compelling, the psychological impact on the individuals enrolled on Witness Protection Scheme that forms the basis of the book fascinating. 

A gritty, dare I say murky, read that is full, perhaps slightly too full, of wonderfully drawn, complex characters, Gimme Shelter is a tremendous rollercoaster of a ride that barely gave time for a pause of breath before there was another often unexpected turn of events ......  something that the ending with its twist too many proved was both to its advantage as well as its detriment. 

Highly recommended for those looking for a crime novel that is that bit different, a novel in which nothing and no-one are rarely as they first seem. 

Disclaimer: An ARC (Advance Reading Copy) read and reviewed on behalf of NEWBOOKS magazine, Gimme Shelter will not be available until September, I was merely asked for my honest opinion, no financial compensation was asked for nor given.
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